In Linux and other UNIX-like operating systems, each process has a standard input (*stdin*) and a standard output (*stdout*). The usual situation is that _stdin_ is your keyboard and _stdout_ is your screen or terminal window. So when you run *find*, it will throw it's output to _stdout_. If you do nothing else, it will go to your screen or terminal window, and you will view it. if we do this: [source,bash] ---- find /usr -name "*.h" | grep "md5" ---- the "*pipe*" connects the _stdout_ of one command to the _stdin_ of another.